I must say this was one of the strangest yet one of the most interesting stories I have ever read. Once you think you have figured out what is going to happen next bang the next thing completely takes you by surprise. The very beginning of the story seems to confuse me a little as Edgar the main character in the story seems to just ramble on and on about Donald Barthelme and works. He also talks about the beginning of his writing days and some of the techniques that Barthelme uses in his writing. I start to get confused a little towards the end of the first page as the author says "the technique here is of escalation-an evolutionary evolution progression from trees to snakes to fish to mammals". Here escalation means "the phenomenon of something getting more intense in a step by step process. However, after I read the whole story I went back and read the introduction again and it all made since to me.
The story is about Edgar, the main character, who is an elementary school teacher. Edgar's class seems to be having a run of bad look during this particular time. Everything the children seem to get for their class seems to die. In the beginning the class is planting trees in order to learn about them however, the trees die shortly after. A couple weeks before that the class had snakes in order to study and shortly after that they all died. Next was the herb garden then the tropical fish then a puppy. The class then adopted a Korean kid who then shortly after also passed away. But, so far everything seem to have a reasonable answer for its passing away. Then the children's relatives started passing away then two of the children were killed in an accident not far from the school. It seemed that whatever the class came into contact with would end up dead. Once you think you have figured out the pattern of the story the next thing takes you completely by surprise.
The children start to ask very deep and educated questions as to where everything goes when it passes away. The children ask "is death that which gives meaning to life"? And as always Edgar is able to escape the question very quickly with an answer. The end of the story is very surprising and unexpected as it introduces a new character who happened to be in the classroom the whole time. As they are having their conversation about the death the children suddenly say "will you make love now with Helen"? Helen is the teachers assistant who sits quietly looking out of the window. The children wish to see a demonstration of love making with he and Helen. And just as I thought that this may actually happen as did the children as it says they became excited and knock came to the door. It was a new gerbil for the class.
So as you can see the ending to this story was very much unlike the rest. Once you think you had the patter of the story figured out boom next come something completely different which keeps the reader on his toes.
The next story is called "The Perfect Gerbil" by George Saunders. In this the author pretty much breaks down the writing style of Barthelme in his story "the School". He says you start with the exposition next you introduce the conflict then you have rising action then the climax then falling action, and finally the resolution. The author says "this is the hardest thing in story telling-getting one's action to rise". The author says "if you wanted a perfect platonic example of action you'd be hard pressed to find anything better than "the school". In this case platonic means a strong type of non sexual love.
The author then goes on to break down the rest of the story. He says that once you think you have to plot of the story figured out Barthelme will completely go to something else to keep the reader from getting bored. He also says that there are plenty of opportunities for the story to have a normal ending but then the situation changes. which is one the things he loves so much about Donald Barthelme. Overall i thought both of these stories were pretty good. I loved "The School" very much as it keep me wondering what would happen next. Also reading "The Perfect Gerbil" helped me to understand the writing style of Barthelme.
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